5 Question Friday

 

1. Do you prefer cotton, silk, or flannel sheets?

 

I've never had silk sheets so I can't say whether or not I'd like them. Living in Vermont, we had flannel sheets and when it's 40 below outside, they are wonderful to have on your bed. Overall, I prefer good quality, high thread count, cotton sheets. 

2. What time zone are you in?

 

I'm in the Pacific time zone. Yuppers.

3. What is your favorite part of the holiday season?

 

Thanksgiving by far. Thanksgiving is all about family and food. It's not about getting the most candy, buying presents, or pretending that there's a mysterious bunny that leaves baskets in your house. It's straightforward and involves turkey comas. What's not to love?

4. What is your favorite "wintry" drink? (It doesn't have to be an "alcoholic" drink!) 

Hmm. I'm not sure that I have one. I like hot tea and coffee but I drink that year around.

5. In your opinion, what is the worst job in the world?

 

I don't know. Most people are just happy to have any job nowadays. I would say the medieval job of wiping the king's butt had to suck or being a whipping boy but those jobs don't exist (to my knowledge) today. 

Looking Through the Window

The Children's Pool at La Jolla, CA

What have I been up to lately? I don't call anyone, I don't blog regularly, and I only post generalized snippets of my life via Twitter and/or Facebook. I feel very out of touch.

So, the Mister and I went to see the Foo Fighters at Viejas Arena last week. Cage the Elephant opened for them. It was the best concert I've ever been to. Granted, I haven't been to a lot of concerts, but the Foo definitely comes out on top and I can't imagine a better show. The concert was on a Monday and we didn't get home until after midnight. Getting up at 6:20 the next morning with the kids was rough, lol. Worth it though. I was tired, had an ear ache and a sore throat on Tuesday, but it was all worth it to see Uncle Dave and the boys.

The oldest child is currently enjoying the longest and most severe grounding of her life. I won't go into the details except to say that if she ever deserved to be whipped, this would have been the time. Other than that, she is finishing up the football season with the band on Friday. She has her first competition on Saturday. Despite her complaints, she has had fun being in the marching band this year. It still remains to be seen whether or not she'll stick with it next year.

The youngest is still the same. She gets her homework done as fast as possible and goes outside until it's dark enough to come in. On the weekends, she's out the door as fast as she can to come in at dark. She's so tanned and her hair is so sun bleached that she doesn't even look related to the rest of us. Saturday, she's going to her first party as a middle school kid. It's Halloween themed so I'm sure it'll be a good time.

The Mister got his associates degree certificate in the mail the other day. He actually could have gotten it a long time ago but kept putting off taking biology, his last requirement for the degree. Very soon he'll have his bachelor's in hand. Other than school and work and going to concerts with me ;), that's about all he's up to. No deployments on the horizon as of this writing. Things like this can change in an instant though.

As for me, I'm in transition. I feel like I've either hit the "finding myself phase" of early adulthood very late or I'm having a midlife crisis very early, lmao. My clients were regularly pissing me off (sorry to any of them reading this) so I started siphoning them off until I was down to zero. I was planning on getting a job outside of the house not realizing what life would be like once the kids were in high school and junior high respectively. Unless I want to work from 5 pm to 6 am, and I don't, finding a job outside the house will be really tough for me. Likewise, school has been put on hold indefinitely. I have run out of financial aid so until I figure out a way to pay for it out of pocket, school isn't likely right now. I have to say, I'm not that sorry about it. I was only going through the motions and doing the minimal amount of work necessary to maintain my GPA. I wasn't enjoying any of my classes or actually learning anything. My only regret is all the time and money I wasted going to school when I wasn't getting anything from the experience.

In the interim, I have started a historical research project that I find fascinating, engaging, and fulfilling. It's still in the early stages so I don't have anything to say about it yet.

I'm also loving living life in California. In the less than two years we've lived here, the Mister and I have been to two concerts, one symphony and our anniversary vacation to Paso Robles. As a family, we've been to Sea World twice, Seaport Village, Julian, Balboa Park, numerous baseball games, the book fair at UCLA, to the desert to visit Jennifer, and other outings around the San Diego area. The kids have been to the zoo, the wild animal park, Old Town as well as many others. Not to mention all the fabulous shopping we've done. That's more than we did the entire six years we lived away from San Diego. California suits us.

5QF

 

Rules for Five Question Friday: Copy and paste the following questions to your blog post, answer them.

 

1. Do you apologize to your kids if you're wrong?  I try my best to do so. I want to teach my kids the value of honesty so I try to be honest with them as much as I can which includes admitting when I'm wrong.

2. Do you have a class ring, letterman's jacket, or similar obscenely priced high school "must have"?  Nope. My class ring was stolen by a drug dealer. I never had a letterman's jacket. Even though I paid for my year book, I never got it.

3. If you could be one age for the rest of your life, what age would you choose?  About 28 I would say. Old enough to know better but not ancient yet. 29 is too close to 30.

4. What is your favorite (unused) baby name?  I don't really think that I have one. I like what I named both of my girls and the Mister and I always knew that two would be enough.

5. If you could make your child like something what would it be?  This one is easy. I would make them both like to read.

Nostalgia

Pic from our anniversary vaca. This is from the side of the road on the way to San Luis Obispo.

I was looking back through my blog last night trying to figure out when I started up my business. Turns out it was June-ish of 2008 in case you were curious too. Anyway, reading back through my old posts made me realize how much my blogging, or lack thereof, has really changed over the years.

I used to have blogging friends. I still have a few, but I've lost touch with more of them than not. I used to actively read blogs and search for new blogs to read. Nowadays, I'm really selective about the blogs that I read and comment very rarely. I used to blog more than once a month. In 2007, I had 358 posts. That's more than one a day for the entire year. In 2011, I've posted 15 times. This will be #16. I've been blogging since late 2003 so I've been a witness to the ebbs and tides of blogging. It certainly isn't as trendy as it once used to be. Lots of people claim that blogging isn't even relevant anymore. As I feel very out of the loop, I can't offer an opinion on the state of blogging in general. I know that my RSS reader has about 150 new threads every day and that I subscribe to 210 different feeds. I read maybe four posts a day though, lol. I usually just click, "mark all as read".

I miss it though. I miss the community of bloggers that I was part of at one time. I miss having things to say that I want to share with other people.

Blah blah blah.

One blogging trend that I don't miss and I think it contributed to my reading blogs less is moms using their blogs to endorse products. I got really tired of that. If I want to be hawked at, I'll stop fast forwarding through commercials on TV. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it, just that it's not the kind of casual blog reading that I want to do.

NaBloPoMo is right around the corner. Maybe I'll put some serious effort to making it through that challenge this year.

Blackout 2011

I jinxed us. In yesterday's post, I said that we wouldn't lose power again, "hopefully". I should have said, knock on wood and then actually knocked on wood. Instead of two streets losing power, several million people in TWO countries lost power last night and into this morning. Our power was out for about 10 - 11 hours yesterday. In the grand scheme of emergency situations, it wasn't all that bad. Hot, yes. Worrisome, a little. Especially when the SDG&E guy said that it could be as long as 3 days for some people. We would've been alright without power for about 2 days but after that, we would have been out of food. We're supposed to go to the commissary tomorrow. We're not big on stocking up. Frankly, I barely have enough room in my kitchen for one week's worth of groceries.

We also have a boil water advisory. They mentioned that in the press conference last night too. I assumed that would have been lifted this morning when the power came back on but the lady at Jack in the Box told us that the health department told them not to serve anything made with water "until further notice". We don't have bottled water because we have an under-the-sink water filtration system that filters our tap water. So, we have to boil our water for now. No biggie.

Due to the fact that we lived in hurricane alley for three years, we have emergency stuff. We have a battery powered lantern with backup batteries, an emergency radio that runs on hand crank or batteries if you have them, and we also have a freak ton of candles but that's mainly because I love candles. Unfortunately, when you're burning that many candles for light with many varied scents, you end up with a headache.

We also had company last night for the blackout. My neighbor and her husband work at the Navy base downtown and couldn't get home because of the traffic. Fortunately, I'm on their emergency list and was willing and able to pick their daughter up from the youth center for them. They didn't get home until 9 last night. That's how crazy the freeways were. People said they saw people backing down the freeways to get out of traffic jams. Sheesh.

Today, power is back on but most traffic lights haven't been reset and they're either off or flashing. I would say the majority of people are smart enough to know that you treat intersections without traffic lights like four way stops. However, we saw an idiot bonehead totally blow through an intersection without even slowing down. Wake up!! We plan on going out sometime today and buying more batteries, some unscented candles, and a case of bottle water if we can find any. Call me crazy, but I don't trust the power to stay on at this point, lol. Counting the first day of school when the high school lost power because it rained (not because it was an electrical storm but literally because of the rain), we've experienced some sort of power outage three days in a row.

Ironic thing:  Yesterday was the Mister's birthday. As soon as he had finished unwrapping his Madden 2012 for the PS3, the power went out! Hehehehe. How rude is that??

Oh. And I totally would like to thank Twitter and all my San Diego tweeps for keeping me informed and for the laughs.

And to the asshats who were charging double for water and bagged ice, you'll get yours and I hope you rot when you do.

First Week of School

This school year has been the biggest adjustment. Both kids are at new schools...again, this year with one starting junior high and the other high school. I'm so tired that I don't know if I'm coming or going. This is what our day looked like yesterday:

6:20am - The Mister, the oldest child, and I get up.

6:20 - 6:45 - Getting ready for school, filling out paperwork for the oldest child, The Mister leaves for work.

7:15 - I leave to drive the oldest to school. Traffic is backed up 2 blocks because some genius city planner thought it'd be a good idea to build a high school on the corner of 2 of the 3 busiest streets in town and right on the way of morning commuters on the way to 2 different freeways.

7:30 - I get home and put my phone in the youngest child's room so that the alarm I have set will wake her up while I hit the shower.

7:30 - 8:30 - The youngest child and I are getting ready for the day.

8:30 - I head out to drive the youngest to school. That's right. I get the privilege of driving both kids to and from school this year.

8:45 - We get to the middle school and I have to park to go into the office to pay for the youngest's PE clothes. I pay, say goodbye, and drive home.

9:00 - about noonish - I go on a cleaning spree cuz I'm back to wearing the hat of SAHM (and that's all I have to say about that at this point in time) so I figure I should clean. Plus, I have maintenance coming at some point in the day to fix the 1/2 bath toilet that's been broken for about a month.
Some point during the morning, the Mister comes home from work to work out in the garage. This is what he does all day yesterday.

1:00 pm - I go a round with the oldest child on the phone (Going a round with her at least once a day is par for the course. No biggie.) as she calls me from school (Wednesday is early release day for her) to tell me she's walking to her old junior high to "see people". I tell her that's fine but that she needs to be home before 5 to eat, hydrate, and rest before band practice later on that night.

1 pm- I'm mopping the kitchen. Maintenance guy has come and gone and fixed the toilet half way telling me that it will hold "for a while". The Mister is still in the garage working out.

2'ish - I finally sit down for a minute.

3:10 pm -  The oldest calls and asks me to pick up her and her friend at Jack in the Box. I tell her to be ready to go cuz I have to leave soon to pick up her sister.

3:20 - On the way home from Jack in the Box, my reminder alarm goes off telling me it's time to leave to pick up the youngest. At this point, I'm speeding to get home so that I can drop off my cargo and get to the middle school on time.

3:25 - 4:05 - Picking up the youngest child. Which, btw, traffic is only backed up about half a block at her school. The parking lot, however, is a nightmare. I have to fight cars coming from three different directions and kids crossing two different ways in the parking lot just to get back to the street. It sucks and I hate it.

4:10 - 5pm. - The Mister is done working out and is now hiding out upstairs to get away from the VERY loud teenager and her friend and I join him when the youngest starts adding her voice to the fray.

5 pm - All 5 of us load up in the car to drop the oldest and her friend off at the high school for band practice. Then the three of us go to Target to get the youngest a lock for her locker and juice boxes for her lunch. She has decided she doesn't want to buy lunch this year. We'll see how long that lasts.

6'ish pm - We get home and I put a pork tenderloin in the over for dinner.

6:22 pm - The power goes off. Lucky for us, at this point in the day, it's only about 90 degrees outside and not the 100 it was earlier that day. Ha ha. My tenderloin still has about 10 more minutes to cook, at least, and none of the sides have been cooked yet. So, dinner is a bust and we hit the Arby's.

7:25 - We're home and I get a text from the oldest asking me to bring her a folder she forgot.

7:30 - 8:15 pm - I sit in the car wondering where in the heck the oldest is, playing solitaire on my phone, and listening to music. Loudly. In our texting, she didn't bother to mention that I could bring the folder when I came to pick her up from practice. I thought she needed it immediately. So I sat in my car for 45 minutes for no good reason. We go another round on the way home.

The rest of the night until 9:30, we complain about how hot it is in the house and that it's still too hot outside to open the windows. I'm thankful that we bought our emergency lantern in NC for our hurricane supplies even though it was never used for that purpose. No power on a hot night is no fun. We decide to go to bed cuz what the heck else are ya gonna do??

11 pm - I have finally just dozed off when I hear knocking at the door. It's the maintenance guys. They need us to move our car that's parked at the curb because the cause of the power outage is in our front yard. The electrical box thingy blew. Oil was all over the place. It has to be replaced. Blah blah. So the Mister moves the car, we go back to bed, and power comes back on about 1 am. The AC has never been more appreciated than in that moment.

Every day from now on will be a variation of this with the exception of losing our power for 7 hours...hopefully. I don't know how long I'm going to last having to drive both kids to and from school every day. In theory, the oldest can walk. The high school isn't so far but when it's 100 degrees outside, I don't like her having to walk. And she's just plain bitchy when I make her walk to school and I don't know if it's easier just to drive her so I don't have to listen to it or if I should make her walk. The youngest, however, her school is way too far away for walking to be an option. I hate traffic. It stresses me in a non-normal way. I need pills. I swear. How many days left in the school year???

12 Things I Don't Understand

In no particular order. Just jotting (is that possible since I'm typing?) them down as they come to me.

1. Celebrating Bastille Day.
2. Toddlers in Tiaras. Show makes me sick.
3. People standing on the sidewalk watching their 1 1/2 - 2 year old baby running out into traffic. If I hadn't been going 10 mph I would have run her over. The mother literally did nothing to stop her and didn't even go after her. What's with that!?!?!
   
4. Bridezillas. I channel surfed past that show today and could only shake my head.
5. Not liking to read.
6. The difference between delegation and pure laziness. I'm being nice here. I do understand the difference and that most people are just effing lazy and too butthole-y to admit it.
   
7. Google+ (if you want an invite so you can try to understand it yourself, let me know.)
   
8. Bullies
9. How people continue to over-complicate every-effing-thing.
10. Why people have pets only to keep them outside. What's the point?
11. Tabloids...All forms of tabloid media.
    
12. Why we can't wear flip flops for all occasions, with all outfits, 365 days a year.

There are tons more things that I don't understand, but I'm so tired that this is all my brain will come up with at this time. If you feel you are able to explain one or more of these things to me, feel free to leave a comment.

Smokin'

Random picture of Bailey because you're insane if you think I had the presence of mind to take a picture of the flaming smoker.

We're very low-key when it comes to celebrating holidays. We do up Thanksgiving and Christmas but all the others, I really could do without. Seriously, if I didn't have kids I think holidays would be just like any other day. The Mister agrees with me on this.

Still, we did up the 4th of July this year pretty good. We had plans to grill out and then hit the fireworks show in Santee like we do every year. Well, every year that we're in California.

The morning of, the Mister and I needed to run a few errands. We needed some melon, an extension cord, mosquito repellent, and other stuff that I can't remember now. We went to Home Depot first because it's easiest to get to from our house without a lot of traffic. We're going through the store and picking up what we needed and walked down the aisle with the grills. We have a fairly new gas grill but we had been wanting to get a smoker for some time now and what better occasion than the 4th of July? Sadly, the only smokers Home Depot had were in open and damaged boxes. Seriously. How do they expect to sell crap like that? We put down all of the things we picked up and went to Lowes.

Our nearest Lowes is located in a highly populated shopping area. It's in the same strip as the Ikea and we were really trying to avoid going there on a holiday because, as we expected, traffic was maddening. After parking ten years away from the store, we go in and find the extension cord, a few varieties of wood chips to go in the smoker, Off Clip-On fans (which I recommend), and the smoker. We get everything into the car (because we were dumb and didn't bring the SUV to the hardware store) and head home (forgetting the melon).

The Mister, being a man, is totally excited to get the smoker put together and try it out. This is what he's doing while I head to the grocery store for the forgotten melon. I get home and he's all ready to put the meat in the smoker. Living next to an open canyon in Tinderbox Socal makes me leery of having open fires so I ask him if he read the directions and knows what he's doing. Of course he has!! Um yeah. I'm looking at the rather large flamage going on in the smoker out of the corner of my eye while the Mister, the oldest child, and I play some Monopoly Deal on the patio. (No way in hell was I going inside while we had a potential raging inferno on the patio.)

We're playing, flames are growing, smoke is getting thicker, and I'm getting more nervous by the second. I ask the Mister again, at the risk of sounding all naggy, if he's sure that he has everything under control. Of course he does!! But, all three of us are watching the smoker while our cards are forgotten in our hands waiting for the inevitable. Then the Mister points out how the paint on the side of the smoker is bubbling and melting off the side. Huh. Is that normal? Next thing you know, flames are shooting out the door of the smoker and the freaking PAINT (or what's left of it) on the side of the ding dong thing is on fire. This is when I jump up, freaking out, run into the house to get my phone in case I need to call 911 (in my frenzy, I've forgotten that my phone was sitting next to me on the patio table) and the Mister is shouting, "Get the hose! Get the hose!" Nuh uh. I'm not coming back outside. He's on his own to get the garden hose and put the smoker out. Ok. So I'm not so good when it comes to fires. The oldest and I watch from the door while the Mister is soaking the smoker and putting the flames out and we both breathe a sigh of relief. I'm thinking that the smoker is going in the trash on Tuesday but no. The Mister, being a man, is eyeing the smoker with the same look that I'm sure prehistoric man had when he was trying to figure out how to cook his mammoth for the first time. The smoker is now a thing to be conquered.

He drags the thing out into the yard so that the sun can dry it out a bit saying how he's glad we bought so much wood chips so that he can try again. And lo and behold!! He reads the directions (the same ones he claims to have read already) and sees that the thing has a fill line for the heat source. He had WAAAY overfilled it, obviously. The second attempt goes much more smoothly considering that the flamage was much more under control and we were able to actually put the meat on the thing this time. So we're smokin' and playing our game waiting for dinner to be done. By this time, we had been at it for HOURS trying to cook some chicken. The youngest rolls home (she had been out playing with her friends up to this point) asking when dinner was going to be ready. She was STARVED. We tell her that it won't be much longer (really having no idea if we were right or wrong).

It's starting to get late. We need to eat, get ready to go, and drive to Santee early enough to get parking before they close the streets down. The girls and I get the side dishes ready while the Mister checks the chicken which is nowhere near done so he gives up on the smoker and tosses the bird parts on the gas grill, lmao. Still, having had the benefit of being on the smoker for as long as it was, the chicken tasted fantastic.

The Mister has since attempted to smoke meat once more with much better results (he had done some research on the web). We had a beef roast that tasted amazing but it took all freaking day to cook because he couldn't keep the temperature high enough on the smoker. The smoker is still a thing to be conquered.